Father's Day Weekend Extravaganza

It was a great Father's Day!

Since Meri and Shub were social distancing, they asked if we could serve lunch on the deck and they'd eat on their end of the deck and we could have the table.  I cleaned up the table, brought out a table cloth and china.  It looked beautiful!

Then the clouds parted half way through the meal and suddenly it got really hot out there.

We moved the party to the dining room with Meri and Shub outside the window.

Robb loved the cooler full of meat that I gave him and was so surprised that he hadn't seen all the packets of meat in the freezer!  I had hidden them all under a bunch of homemade chicken broth... :)

Meri and Shub gave him a really cool cooler  with lots of marinades and meat injector style marinades.  He's going to have a blast with his grill and smoker this summer...

Other happenings at the McVal residence.

My mini roses are in bloom!

ignore the weeds.  been busy elsewhere on the homestead...

I found an empty nest in my hanging basket on the porch...  So I pulled it out.  The bird came back apparently, a little perturbed that her nest was gone and made a quick one and laid her eggs.  Of course I didn't realize this when watering my plant every day and I think I've scared her off.  I took a pic of it then and then again a week later.  No development on the eggs.  I think they've been abandoned...  Darn.  

I got my lawn sweeper delivered last week and got it put together finally after several wrong turns.  It's not EXACTLY like LEGO instructions and I got turned around a lot.  sigh.  But it's together now and after I mowed down some hay mow in the back yard, I dragged this around to pick up the remains.  I probably shouldn't have mowed as low as I did as there is still plenty of hay mow out there, but I did pick up a LOT of grass.  It's on the gardens and in the composter.  Looking forward to a nice dry day to pick up the rest.  But not today.  Thunderstorms galore today.

Oh that's my new mini van btw!  

My MIL has enjoyed watching this little cutie out our back yard every morning.  Of course, when I was mowing I found a lot of deer poop back there...  Now that the big dogs are not living here anymore, I thought we were over that, but not so...

The gate got left open by me moving branches and this little one helped herself to our clover.

I got the gate shut in order to mow easily and lo and behold, the deer jumped the fence to eat more of our clover grass...  I'm a little worried about my grape vines back there.  But we'll see what happens...

 Oh!  I forgot to tell you about my composter!  I found one on the local swap page and splurged on it!  It was from two doors down from our house!  It's already full of house scraps, lawn clippings, etc.  Can wait to see what it will do for me this summer.  I'm trying to make sure it gets turned every day.  Supposedly if I don't put anything more into it, it'll be good dirt in about 2 weeks.  

I doubt that.  But we'll see.  Maddy gets my old one if she still wants it.  It's a square plastic box with a lid.  

We had Leon's brother Finn over for the evening and took him back to his mom's on Saturday.  My new mini-van has dvd screens in the back seat and he turned into a Scooby Doo Zombie...

 Next time I'll recline his seat a little more...

Found this on the siding one day when I arrived home.  Leon came out to look at it and gave me some good information on how it's able to stick to the walls with it's tiny feet.  Such knowledge from that kid!

My Clematis has given us one bloom so far this year!  I'm trying to encourage it to climb the post, but just realized that I should have painted it first...  Oh well.  I'll work around the blooms when I finally pull out the paint.

We had a nice DUO call with Maddy, Matthew, Meri, Shub and Robb on Sunday.  Maddy had Robb and I tell about early father memories of him and our own fathers.  Of course I only remember the times I got in trouble and Dad got after me...  When you put me on the spot, that's what you get.

But it was really sweet and we threw out lots of memories.

Then I went to see Ada and then stopped at the DQ for a Diet Coke Float.  I was hot and sticky from sitting outside her window.  It got hot...  I sat at a park in the shade to finish it off.

The DQ gal said that this was a first for her.  "What?  A Diet Coke Float?"  

Well, I googled it and the calorie count popped up for a small Diet Coke Float as 220 calories...

So SOMEONE else must have done it before me.

But you know what the BEST floats are?  Lemonade floats....mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Waiting for a day when I have a bunch of calories to spare....

Have a great Monday!